I have a VM set to autologin with a username. I used it two days ago, no probs. Just tried again and autologin’s not working, and the username in my autologin config isn’t even there as a user on the login screen?!

What could have happened? And can I hack it?

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Not an expert, but I’ve had problems with VMWare when the services don’t start up properly. Maybe check they are all running? There is an authori(z/s)ation service I believe which may have something to do with it?

You are using a local account & not a domain one?

Ok, so this is weird. I had autologin set to a particular user, with my name so I can hardly forget it. This was working fine for months.

Then suddenly autologin fails, and I now get presented with a user whose name I don’t recognise (but bizarrely is something related to the project so it’s a plausible user name), and whose password I do not know. The only other option was ‘other user’.

I tried an offline password ‘hacker’ which presented me with the users I was expecting, including the one I had been using for autlogon, and I reset that. But I can’t log on with it using ‘other user’.

Seriously – what the hell is going on? How is this even possible?

Your situation is complex but I will give you some guidelines to try an evaluate your problem.
You are either using Windows credentials to login or you created another account. Most likely you created another account that you have been using for months and you are having problems when logging in now. Its common because the VMWare works well with built in administrator account.
If you are using XP just use the inbuilt account and if you are using Vista you need to set up the account. Go to command prompt and select Run as administrator then type “net user administrator /active:yes”. Next go to control panel and you will see administrator account then set a new password.
Also see http://www.techyv.com/questions/vimfault-invalid-login-error-message

^^ Created an account just to post that? Weird!
XP or Vista? Obviously an old spam message too..